Me and Jesus, plus nothing...
Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch over your souls as those who will give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with grief, for this would be unprofitable for you. (Hebrews 13:17)
(Tim) The results of Trinity College's 2008 American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) are in and they confirm that the souls of Americans are not being lost to false religions, but to the complete rejection of the Church. This confirms my own experience.
Far and away the largest number of souls who have rejected Church of the Good Shepherd's doctrine in the past decade, investigating us but leaving for somewhere else, left because we require a believer be a member in good standing of some evangelical, Bible-believing church to join with us at the Lord's Table.
We fence the Table quite inclusively, really. I use the liturgy of the old Scottish Book of Worship and it's a balm for weak souls trusting in Christ alone for our salvation. But then, at the end, I warn off those who reject Christ's authority, rejecting the authority of elders over their own soul. If they believe they can relate directly to God, bypassing the ministry and authority of His Church, this rebellion disqualifies them from communing with us, I tell them.
Of course, I go on to show them how easily they may correct the matter...
If they are in transition, I don't mean to exclude them, I regularly say. And if they're in principle opposed to membership rolls and the like, our elders will be pleased to make provision for their conscience by meeting with them, personally, examining them and receiving their promise of submission to instruction and discipline.
But such reassurances rarely do the trick. The problem is more deep-seated than form. It's function.
The fruit of yesterday's and today's evangelicalism (which very much includes churches of my own denomination, the Presbyterian Church in America) hates ecclesiastical authority as much as domestic and civil authority. And everything they've been taught leads them to believe that "me and Jesus" is all there is. Thus their right to the Lord's Table comes directly from Jesus, Himself. Did He not command them, "This do ye in remembrance of me?" He's the One Who invites them to the Table--not any pastor or elder. How dare we bar them from obeying what Jesus has commanded. It's just not right.
Sadly, individual Christians have not come up with this on their own. They were taught it by their former pastors. Intentionally.
Several years ago, our presbytery had an extended floor and E-mail debate over this matter, and it was a great disappointment to me to see how many men ordained to the ministry of the Word and Sacrament in the PCA were opposed to fencing the Table from those who intentionally refuse to submit to any church authority. The level of their arguments was questions like, "Where in the Bible does it say anyone has to be a church member to eat the Lord's Supper?" And that sort of question came from a man training our future pastors at our denominational seminary, so you see our problem is quite deep-seated.
Well, the accounting's been done and the fruit of our complicity with the Me and Jesus, Plus Nothing theology is in. As the ARIS puts it: "The challenge to Christianity in the U.S. does not come from other religions but rather from a rejection of all forms of organized religion."
Last week I got a call from an elder of my former Presbyterian Church in America congregation, Grace Presbyterian Church of Pardeeville, Wisconsin. There's a hullabaloo over the new pastor fencing the Table against those who reject the authority of the Church. I've been gone sixteen years, now, and it pleases me no end to hear their new pastor and his elders are hanging tough on this one. Souls are at stake.
It might be wise for evangelicals to declare a moratorium on their children memorizing John 3:16. Let them memorize Hebrews 13:17, instead.
What? You say you don't know what Hebrews 13:17 says? For shame.
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What I find most distressing about the ARIS results is the response of the Church. In Her desparate attempt to become culturely relevant, She has become increasingly irrelevant.
Interestingly, the topic of church membership showed up elsewhere yesterday...
http://heidelblog.wordpress.com/2009/09/29/why-membership-matters/
Tim:
May I ask you a practical question? Is your church small enough that you and other members of the clergy/elder board knows most of your members, even if you may not know them as well as you'd like? If so, I can see how you might make fencing the Table work. If you have a larger church, how do you implement this? After you warn the congregation about the dangers of not being under the authority of a local church, do you trust that people who do not belong to a church will refrain from taking Communion out of respect for your church's beliefs on this subject?
When I attended Berkeley of the East (University of Wisconsin-Madison) I had a co-worker who belonged to the campus WELS (Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod Church) and I belonged to another campus Lutheran church. She told me that there was no way I could take communion in her church. Anyone who wasn't known to the pastors or others in leadership must show a membership card from another WELS church to an usher before being able to take Communion.
Now we know why the megachurches are so popular with evangelical Christians, you just get to "come as you are," no questions about past affiliation and NO ACCOUNTABILITY! Or as they say at Outback Steakhouse, "No rules, just right." Tim, I have always appreciated your gences; you gotta keep the sheep protected within and the wolves (as much as is possible) kept to the outside.
I'm sure others use similar points. One way I have tried to explain it to some at our church is the following:
1. The New Testament churches had a numbering of who was counted as part of their churches.
2. If a Christian is not a member of a church accountable to elders, if there is no list of who is in and who is out, then how can church discipline that Jesus taught in Matthew 18:15 (the last stages of it) and the church discipline that we see in 1 Corinthians be carried out?
In my experience, people either accept it, or just draw away; they withdraw from the discussion and also refuse to change their thinking.
In your experience, what reasoning do people use to object to this when they wish to refuse membership?
>>In your experience, what reasoning do people use to object to this when they wish to refuse membership?
No reasoning at all. It's as you say, they either accept it or their rebellion continues, but with no defense. Generally, people today don't argue matters. They feel them. Especially Evangelicals and Emergents.
Love,
"If so, I can see how you might make fencing the Table work. If you have a larger church, how do you implement this?"
It is possible for large church to adequately fence the table if the membership has been properly train to lovingly meddle in lives of others. For example, a few weeks ago I noticed a believing friend didn’t take communion. I asked him why he hadn’t. The opposite would be true if I saw an unbelieving friend or a wayward believer taking communion. I think something as simple as this greatly helps the elders in their efforts to fence the table.
>>I think something as simple as this greatly helps the elders in their efforts to fence the table.
You bet, dear brother.
I posted something along these lines a few years ago (http://www.kyriosity.com/2005/08/somethings-missing-doug-wilson-here.htm). Musta been before Blog and Mablog had a comment system, or I'da raised the question there.
$#@%! comment system on this blog always messes up URLs that have punctuation after them. It's supposed to have been http://www.kyriosity.com/2005/08/somethings-missing-doug-wilson-here.htm
And you wonder why God's elect aren't walking through the doors of your filthy 'churches'?
Christianity is not churchianity. Clerics and ritual are not the faith. And any cleric who affects to get in between myself and my Savior is looking for trouble.
But you guys don't take it as far as the Romanists do when they have the power to, do you? Not in God's country you don't.
ct, do you really want to be calling Jesus' bride "filthy"? The bride He died to cleanse and purify and beautify? His bride is not some amorphous collection of unconnected cells, she is a body -- still developing, to be sure -- but orderly and organized. *He* ordained that she have leaders. *He* ordained that she should exercise discipline over her members. *He* ordained the sacrament of baptism as the ritual of joining into the covenant He has with her. *He* ordained the sacrament of communion as the ritual of renewing the covenant He has with her. Any cleric who affects to know better than Jesus how to carry out his role in serving and protecting his Master's bride is looking for Trouble with a capital T. And so is any individual who rebelliously throws aside the authority of Christ in these matters.
Tim,
I'm interested in your treatment of those who are opposed to membership rolls as a matter of conscience- I happen to be one myself. (I also agree to submission to teaching and to church discipline.) My current church regards my belief as an extreme oddity. What do you know of it appearing elsewhere?
ct
Thanks for making Tim's point. I doubt that he could have come up with a better illustration than the one that you have provided for us.
"...who are opposed to membership rolls as a matter of conscience."
William,
What do you mean by a matter of conscience?
Valerie, are you a former Roman Catholic?
Where man-fearing is exaulted and the fear of God is implicity mocked (with the practice of clericalism and ritualism and the filthy practice of respecting of persons that by default goes along with that) you have a filthy churchian environment.
You're a Christian? Really? Then you are a prophet, a priest, and a king. You fear God only, and not man. You take nothing more seriously than the very Word of God itself. Again, you're a Christian? Act it.
>You take nothing more seriously than the very Word of God itself.
Which should inform your understanding both of the church and its elders, which appears not to have happened in your instance.
"And any cleric who affects to get in between myself and my Savior is looking for trouble."
Actually, ct, it is you who will find trouble at the Judgment for your willful blindness to the fact that you have far more than a cleric here or there between you and your Savior. By that very Savior's design and will, you have a virtually numberless multitude between you and your Savior.
It begins with the Apostles themselves. John is blunt in 1 John 1:1-4 -- no Christian, including you, has any fellowship with Jesus directly. Your fellowship with Him, like every Christian's, is mediated through the writings of the Apostles. Paul's writings that deal with a specific disciplinary problem in Corinth are the commandments of the Lord (you see, the Corinthians' obedience to Christ is mediated to them through Paul).
But, it doesn't stop there. Paul, and the other Apostolic founders of the Church, committed their mandate from Christ to their successors, to "faithful men who are able to teach others." And, of course, such men have been doing so for 20 centuries. Jesus also committed to the Apostles the authority to bind and loose, something you see happening for the first time in the Jerusalem Council which bound the consciences of Christians with respect to matters no where addressed in the express teaching of Christ, or in any of the writings of His apostles up to that time.
The faith you have, if indeed you have the Christian faith, is a deposit handed down to you by a host of faithful Christians whom you do not know, whom you have never seen, whose names you will never know until after your death. And, the Savior you claim to serve has placed this host between Himself and you, down the centuries to the present day. It is all of them that stand between you and your Savior, every last one of them who had any involvement in conveying the faith you claim to have, conveying it from the Lord through all those saints who were faithful to receive, to live, and to pass down the good deposit of faith that is the treasure of every faithful Christian.
A few of these who mediate the faith to you are still on earth today -- among them your elders who are responsible to Christ for you, to whom you have a duty to obey and support, a duty imposed on you by Christ Himself. Who will call both them and you to account.
John tells us "If a man say, I love God, and hates his brother, he is a liar: for he that loves not his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?" You claim to serve Christ. Well and good. But know that you cannot serve Jesus whom you have not seen if you dismiss, ignore, or scorn those whom He has appointed over you, whom you can indeed see.
You ask Valerie if she is a former Roman Catholic. I do not know the answer to that one, but I do know that what she tells you is catholic (note the small "c"), it is the faith of the whole church, the authority of that "awful mob" Chesterton mentioned, "terrible as an army with banners." And that mob, that army stands between you and its Captain. You get to Him only through them and their faithful service to Him to mediate the faith from Him to you.
From what you write about Christ's Bride, from how you scorn Christ's ministers, you invite others to wonder if the faith you profess is the one true faith mediated to all Christians through His Body, the Church.
This is the truth. I love Bill Mouser. Love him, that faithful servant of Christ. Love him.
Michael, I hope to write more at length about why my conscience labels church membership as a sin. But briefly, it's because committing yourself as a member to one particular church is saying "I follow Paul, I follow Apollos, I follow Cephas" (1 Cor. 1:12), and is working directly against Christ's wish that all the church be one as the Trinity is one (John 17:20-21).
William,
I see. Two things. First, what do you do with the wealth of passages that clearly teach the doctrine of the local church? Second, do you see that your view would lead to even more division and not less?
Unfortunately, my experience has been that churches with a strong intellectual background (like mine) will cite passages as support of strong membership, but the actual connections are spurious. Still, I am needy for Godly wealth, so if you offer some, I will hear you.
As for the second, I (happily) do not have to suppose what the practical outworking of my beliefs would be. In the time that I have been living them out, I have experienced wonderful fellowship with Christians in other churches- not idle or sentimental fellowship, but active, powerful service together in the Holy Spirit. I would not dare to boast if I thought it came in my own power, but my conviction is that it is proof that the Holy Spirit breaks down divisions and unites people who otherwise could know only strife.
Sadly, many churchgoers spend a lot more time hearing about other denominations than going out and serving the Lord with them, encouraging them, and being sharpened by them.
So, no. I don't see it. *smile*
This is like debating Romanists. That Hebrews passage for instance, doesn't take long for a Romanist to throw it down as evidence I must prostrate myself to the nearest Romanist priest.
That verse references something, pilgrims, what is it? It's the Word of God. Go back a few verses to see it. It's called the analogy of faith.
Again, you're a Christian? Then you are a prophet, a priest, and a king. If your definition of 'church' is where dumb or brand new to the Bible people go then fine. Children who need a nanny. Fine. Hope you do something to make sure they don't stay at that level, though. Hope 'making a living' such as it is, doesn't drive your motives any.
Once we have the Word of God, available to all, the scene changes. The Spirit doesn't work through clerics into Christians. I hope you don't think the Spirit works that way. Do you? Some of you must, based on the way you talk. Arguably the call that is effectual needs the voice of a Christian to be an external shock to a currently unregenerate person. Any Christian can deliver that shock. If they are using the Word of God. Not a sermon, the Word of God. Even: "Jesus saves." That can be enough.
Churchianity is death. Might as well have stayed Romanist.
William,
I need you to make something clear for me. Do you hold to Scripture’s teaching of both the universal and the local church? It seems obvious to me that you reject the doctrine of the local church but it would be helpful to read it from your own pen…er…. keyboard.
CT,
It is easy to be so “bold” when you hide behind a shroud of cowardly anonymity. Man up. After all, you are a PROPHET, priest, and king. Act it.
Hypocrisy is death. Might as well be a pagan.
CT-
Ugh. You sound like the one of the people from the "we-don't-believe-in-doctrine,swinging-from-the-chandeliers, I-am-a-super-Christian-because-I-not-only-speak-in-tongues-but-I-can-accurately-interpret-everyone-else's-prayer-language" kind of church.
Yeah. I learned absolutely NOTHING, nor did I grow as a Christian or in obedience or in maturity by going there from infancy to early adulthood. I knew very little about the Bible, let alone using the Word of God to convert someone. But I sure knew the "Just Me 'n Jesus" hanging out in nature and having a good cry kind of deal.
Rubbish. And it's no wonder that most of the kids that I knew in that church (including ones from my own family) are no longer walking with the Lord.
Rebecca, interesting you have to build a straw man to attack what I've written. You make me to be a no-doctrine type of Christian? Where did you get that?
I'm a read the Bible complete, over and over, type of Christian and with the help of the Spirit of dicernment and truth you will gravitate towards what is known as biblical doctrine.
Clerics and ritual and formalism and moralism and physical church buildings and so on don't get that done.
To Michael: I fear God alone and not man. Where in that do you see cowardice? I know it is a new stance for the average churchian to meet up with in the world or on the internet, but to see cowardice in it is interesting. Another straw man needed to even respond.
"gravitate towards what you know as biblical doctrine."
I'm not saying that we have the Holy Spirit to help us read the Bible. But to throw the baby out with the bathwater with regard to leaders that God has given us to teach us is seemingly unwise and immature. The Bible calls us to be mature and to stop being babes, just feeding off of milk. We are to know the Bible deeply and intimately, and there are so many things that are difficult to understand, simply because many of us don't have the time or the where-with-all to go and study Greek and Hebrew to understand. That's why God gave us pastors.
I'm sure that many of the people that I went to church with in my youth read the Bible. But over and over, their lives showed little to no fruit. When we truly avail ourselves to God's Word, it permeates our thinking, our hearts, and our demeanor. I don't think what they were doing (and what you are doing) has much to do with biblical doctrine.
CT-
Here's a brief observation.
If Romanism is one pole, you're the other. When discussing God's Word with Romanists, they always come back to the Church/Magisterium...which you don't do. It always comes back to *you*.
Given the choice between a Christianity that calls for love of the brethren and order(i.e. the Church), or obeying "CT"-ianity, I'll take the former. The tyranny of your bi-polar disorder is frightening.
ct: "I know it is a new stance for the average churchian to meet up with in the world or on the internet, but to see cowardice in it is interesting. Another straw man needed to even respond."
Me: You're the average Christian, ct. You're bland. I run into you all the time. When it's "just me and my bible" Christianity, that is egalitarianism at it's zenith...tyrannical mini-popes calling for my submission.
"You're the average Christian, ct. You're bland. I run into you all the time. When it's "just me and my bible" Christianity, that is egalitarianism at it's zenith...tyrannical mini-popes calling for my submission."
Exactly. In "CT"-ianity, every man is a denomination to himself.
"...egalitarianism at it's zenith...tyrannical mini-popes calling for my submission."
"Exactly. In "CT"-ianity, every man is a denomination to himself."
You guys do know that that is one of the stock objections that Catholics use against Protestants, don't you?
CT, I asked you to do something before commenting again. You've not done it, but you are still commenting, here. Please read the private post on the main page and do what I've asked before commenting here, again. My e-mail address is tbbayly at gmail dot com.
Thank you.
> You guys do know that this is one of the stock objections that Catholics use aganst Protestants, don't you?
When leveled aganst Protestants who share ct's less than robust ecclesiology these accusations would seem to have some merit.
>You guys do know that that is one of the stock objections that Catholics use against Protestants, don't you?
And they accused us of antinomianism. Doesn't mean there aren't real antinomians.
TUAD: "You guys do know that that is one of the stock objections that Catholics use against Protestants, don't you?"
Me: I'm not pulling inventory from their stock.
On the bright side for this, a local Outhouse Steakback has closed.....maybe the time for rules and docrine is coming. And I remember once when asking for church membership, the pastor was quite surprised when I noted I wanted to be under authority.
"You guys do know that that is one of the stock objections that Catholics use against Protestants, don't you?"
Yeah...so what?
ct, your despising of Christ's bride, your rejection of His ordained ministers, your dismissiveness of His Word -- in short, your rebellion against Him -- is a grievous sin. As a prophet (a role you agree I have), I adjure you to repent.
*****************
And lemme just say publicly that I love, love, LOVE having a pastor and elders who exercise real authority over the local church of which I am a member. I love their oversight and protection of me. I love that there are men in the world who have the right within the sphere of their authority to tell me "no." There are, in fact, few things in this life for which I am, or have ever been, more grateful.
There is a certain delightful irony in that the "Me and Jesus plus nothing" crowd, while claiming to uphold the authority of Scripture, completely ignores the fact that the letters of Paul are (except Philemon) written to churches and elders.
I remember it being a delightful thing to me when I started reading the Scriptures in German, and what is implicit in the English became blindingly obvious; the use of the word "you" in the New Testament is plural most of the time. One cannot reconcile that with "lone wolf" versions of Christianity.
One of the defining traits of the lone gunners for Jesus crowd that I've observed over the years is the self confident assertion of being "led by the Spirit". Invariably, this spirit will lead them somewhere Scripture prohibits them from going( to someone else's spouse for instance). When this happens, they recognize no agency, institution, or individual as posessing the requisite authority to over-rule the "spirit.
"I need you to make something clear for me. Do you hold to Scripture’s teaching of both the universal and the local church?"
Michael, I think our discussion would be most fruitful if it presumed nothing and dealt with specific issues that could be supported or refuted from Scripture. I believe a good number of things about the local Church, and I believe I can support them from Scripture- so the answer to your question is "Yes, I believe in Scripture's teaching about the local church". But you might mean something by that phrase that I wouldn't agree with.
I'd be happy to consider specific propositions you put up, supported by scriptures.
Or, if you'd prefer, I'd provide my own: given the exhortation in 1 Corinthians not to identify ourselves by man-made subsects of the Christian church, why do you consider church membership (in the sense Tim Bayly is using it) to be Gospel-honoring?
William,
You say you believe in the local church. Good, I think we are getting somewhere. Now, is that "local church" you believe in an amorphous blob or does it have actual boundaries? In other words, how do you measure where the church ends and the world begins?
I am not ducking your questions but working my way towards an answer step by step.
William, if you define "churchian" as a person who merely comes to the building, then we probably have something in common. On the other hand, the relevant, important question I've got is what you do with Paul's admonitions to Timothy and Titus. Do you fall under the authority of elders and deacons, as Paul commands, or no?
"...given the exhortation in 1 Corinthians not to identify ourselves by man-made subsects of the Christian church..."
You mean this one: "To the church of God which is at Corinth...."?
Whew! Lots of responses. *smile*
Michael: I'm not quite sure how to answer your question. I think "amorphous blob" versus "having boundaries" is a false binary: an amorphous blob is something without structure, not without boundaries. I would say that the church definitely has a structure- with pastors as undershepherds, and the laity as ones who are supposed to be living their lives in the world, but not living as sons of the world, shining as light in the darkness. Does it have boundaries? The catholic Church doesn't have geographical boundaries- but it seems like the model given in Acts is of a reasonable coming together based on proximity. Where does the church end and the world begin? It seems like there's at least three different ways in which you could be answering it: in the world geographically; in the world socially; in the life of a Christian, daily; and in the life a Christian, over the course of their entire life. Which do you mean?
Bubba: I never use the word "churchian". In the parable of the sower, Jesus described a) people who never become Christian, b) people who become Christian and fall away, c) people who become Christian and never come to maturity and bear fruit, and d) Christians who mature and bear fruit. It seems that people use churchian for either (b) or (c). I say that I do fall under the authority of pastors, elders, and deacons- it's part of my allegiance to Christ, because he has appointed them as authority over me. They're over me because we're both serving Christ- so hopefully neither of us would consider ourselves of any importance when describing the authority that's been set up. An elder might say he is an undershepherd in the body of Christ; and I would say I am in the service of Christ; but I would err to say I am in the service of the elder.
Valerie: I didn't mean that one, but it's perfectly serviceable. The church is OF God. It is located AT Corinth. I guess if you're feeling contentious you could say that Corinth is a man-made city, but that wasn't what I meant by "man-made subsect"... What are your thoughts on 1 Corinthians 1:12?
Also, I'm still wondering: why does Tim Bayly's church make provision for those whose consciences consider membership rolls to be wrong? What experience has he had with them?
William -- I was being a tiny bit facetious, of course. My point was that there are subsets of the church, and that they are, to an extent, man-made. The church at Corinth being a prime example. 1:12 doesn't refer to man-made subsets of the church, but to anti-churchly divisions within the Corinthian subset of the church.
Throughout that epistle the apostle exhorts the local church to pursue unity, but they are to do so as a local, particular body of believers. They are to "love the ones they're with" (to take a really bad lyric out of context). Elsewhere Paul exhorts his protégés to ordain leaders of local bodies. And of course there are various exhortations throughout the Scriptures about obeying those leaders. The ones who have authority over the local bodies of which we are part.
And how will we know whether we're part of a given local body without membership rolls? Becoming a member in my congregation and in most Reformed congregations includes a vow to submit to the discipline of the local body. Without that commitment, how will the leaders know who belongs to their flock, who belongs to the flock of other shepherds, and who isn't even a sheep? Without that commitment, how will the other sheep in the body know with whom they are to be unified?
You may say we are to be unified with the whole church, with which I certainly can't argue, but there is a deeper level of intimacy possible and needful within a local body than with the world-wide church just as there is a deeper level of intimacy possible and needful within your immediate family than with all of your relatives (which, when you think about it, is everybody in the world).
As for our duties to the leaders of our local bodies, I think we can draw an analogy from Paul's exhortation to wives: "Submit to your own husbands as to the Lord." To extrapolate the principle, we can't submit to every pastor and elder in the world, but we are called to submit to those directly over us.
To draw another analogy from marriage, joining a local church is like joining in matrimony (though not necessarily 'til death do us part). It is a public pronouncement of one's intention to submit to the leaders of a local body and to love and serve the members of that body. Putting those names on some kind of roll on paper or in a database is a handy tool to keep track of who is counted among that membership, but it is the commitment that makes the membership.
Thanks for the exchange. Hope this conversation is clarifying things for you.
Blessings!
How does one know who is under the authority of the deacons and elders if one does not have a list of members, whether formally or informally? How did John know, in 1 John, whether someone was still among the body?
William,
You are being a tid bit slippery. Lets try this another way. Would you be okay with serving communion to an unrepentant homosexual that claims Christ as Lord? Would you be okay with the baptism of a man that says he is a Wiccan priest but also wants Jesus to be his Lord?
Valerie, thanks for the comment. I appreciate the clarity and simplicity of what you've said, and how you've said things that I agree with and things that I disagree with. It's a great state for a conversation to be in.
I agree that we're to "love the ones we're with", as far as church goes, in a local context. We're not supposed to shop around for the most charismatic pastor or the families that have it all together.
Both you and Bubba ask the question of how to identify someone without membership rolls. Here, it's worth making a finer distinction on my belief: the church being organized is good and is not sinful. The problem is an incorrect identity and commitment. (Don't worry: I will answer the question of "how" before this comment is done!)
Paul tells us to have organized churches. One person should speak, then another (1 Corinthians 14:27-33). Also, the apostles affirmed a proper administration of mercy to widows, including some necessary reorganization (Acts 6:1-6).
1 Corinthians 1:12, the problem is not one of organization, but of identity. They're making an error: though they're actually in an undivided church (vs. 13), they're considering themselves to be part of one division- that of Apollos, etc. Likewise, even today, if we're identifying ourselves with some division of the Christian church- a division Christ himself does not recognize- we sin. That's what I believe that passage is saying, and I think the context of verses 10 and 11 supports this.
What you say about intimacy in the local church is true: you need to abide with people for some time and with some frequency to enjoy the full fellowship that Christ has purchased for us. So I agree that you can't just hop from church to church each week, or each year.
What can satisfy both of these requirements? It requires a fine distinction: the commitment itself is only to the catholic Church; but the out-working of it occurs in the local church. As an analogy: in the USA an FBI agent might live and work in Los Angeles, but his master is nation-wide. He must be aware of his master's doings all around the country, because they'll affect what he does in Los Angeles; he must be ready to relocate to another area where his master sends him. But that doesn't mean he can stop showing up to the office in Los Angeles. He keeps going to work in Los Angeles. But he knows he's part of something bigger than the LAPD.
How do we know who is under our authority? I think that's a good question for us to think about. I'll start small: how does it work out in my own case? I'm at church on Sunday; I work on audio-visual stuff on a rotation (so that announcements and the words to songs are up on the screen), which usually involves the pastors (they bring me their sermon notes and tell me of announcements they want to make). I go to a small group on Fridays (our church has them every two weeks), and an evangelism class on Tuesdays. Finally, I go and talk to my pastor. I talk with him about things that are going well in my life; things that I need his advice with, because they're hard; and things that are a concern to me about the church as a whole. Do you think God will hold my pastor responsible for William? (You know, I think I'll ask him that some time.)
Now, I've listed quite a few activities, I know. It's atypical, and it's not reasonable to assume that everybody will be doing that, or that I will be doing that all the time. Here's how I think each fits in:
-The thing that actually makes him responsible for me is the fact that I sit under his teaching on Sunday.
-The thing that makes it a joy and not just a burden for him is the fact that I am also serving in the church.
-The thing that helps him to know that he's responsible for me, and helps him to know how he needs to serve me, is the fact that I come to him and talk to him one-on-one in a pastoral context.
I don't believe that being on a membership roll does any of those things.
Briefly: the problem I have with marriage-membership analogies is that the ones in the Bible are comparing us, in marriage, to the catholic church, as Christ's bride. So I don't think it's correct to apply them to us, in the local church.
Michael: How was I being slippery? I answered as earnestly, clearly, and completely as I could. (In answer to your latest questions: no and no. If they have repented but still struggle with sin, they are Christian. If they think that Jesus will share them with any other lord, they do not know Jesus, and are not his.)
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